The invention is directed to a wheeled machine for shredding and/or collecting drugs and similar pharmaceutical and/or medical products incident to permanent disposal which can be utilized in hospitals, pharmacies, nursing homes or like medical facilities by nurses or similar healthcare providers.
By law, expired drugs, prescriptions, over-the-counter medications, etc. must be destroyed to prevent unauthorized distribution which could lead to serious medical problems, as well as providing the added benefit of reducing the possibility that they may be diverted or use in drug counterfeiting/trafficking. Typical drugs and their packaging include tablets, capsules, granules, and liquids utilized in conjunction with any one of associated pill bottles, caps, tubes, vials, ampules, blister packages, blister cards, blister packs, multiple unit packages, twin blister packs, unit dosing packages and the like.
A typical conventional drug depository is, for example, a drop chute collection unit manufactured and sold by deVault Company, Inc. which is illustrated and described at http://deVault.com/drop_chute.html. Model No. DVDC0060 disclosed thereat is 19″W×42″H×19″D and includes a simple “drop and go” deposit slot through which disposed drugs and/or packaging are guided by a funnel system into removable totes for safe and easy collection with access being provided via a front key-lock access door.
Mobile or portable units specifically designed for shedding, crushing and collecting medical waste products and material are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,590,804 issued on Jan. 7, 1997 to Mathew J. Adams et al. and U.S. Pat. No. 6,568,614 B2 issued on May 27, 2003 to Han Jong Chen et al. while two other shredders utilized for more general purpose shredding are disclosed in Pub. No.: US 2006/0091247 A1 in the name of Tai Hoon Kim Matlin published on May 4, 2006 and Pub. No. US 2006/0086874 A1 in the name of David A. Schenker published on Apr. 27, 2006. The latter patents and publications reflect the most relevant prior art found during a search of the present invention which also included the below-listed additional publication and patents:
U.S. 2006/0054725Matlin3,389,864Topinka3,682,402Goldhammer3,750,966Anderson4,531,437Szablak et al.4,873,811Izumintani5,035,367Nojima5,165,564Prout et al.5,282,428Greville et al.5,375,781Schwelling5,429,313Schwelling5,662,281Wollert et al.5,692,687Kateley5,887,807Bienicke5,897,065Schwelling6,186,428Robinson et al.
Recently the Institute of Medicine (IOM) recommended more unit-dose packaging and clear copy on product labels, recommendations that Mr. Peter Maybery, executive director of the Healthcare Compliance Counsel, called “pure gold.” The IOM report has set off a debate both within the industry and in Washington, D.C. as to whether drug manufacturers are moving quickly enough into blister packs, though there is not any federal requirement of any kind that they do so. Drug companies already put certain products in unit-dose packaging and unit-of-use packaging and the latter is expected to increase even though the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has made no specific requirements with respect to such packaging other than the drug bar coding requirement that went into effect April of 2006. It required all manufacturers, whether they sell direct to hospitals or through wholesalers, to make sure that each drug container which ends up in a hospital pharmacy has a linear bar code which, at a minimum, contains the drugs' National Drug Code (NDC) number, a requirement that grew out of a 1989 IOM report that estimated there are 98,000 deaths annually from medication errors. Though the FDA rules do not require that hospital SKUs be packaged in a unit-of-use or unit-dose package, most pharmaceutical companies are beginning to do just that. Therefore, in the coming years an effective drug shredding/collecting system for effectively destroying expired drugs must necessarily have the capability of disposing of all drugs and drug packaging, be such small plastic bottles and caps, larger bulk bottles utilized by retail pharmacies or the ever expanding unit-of-use and unit-dose packaging (blister packs) which in the United States now stands at only 20% as compared to 80% overseas. Accordingly, at this point in time hospitals, hospital pharmacies, retail pharmacies, etc. require a machine which can both shred and collect drug and drug packaging of virtually any type, particularly being mindful of the ever expanding unit-of-use and unit-dose use blister packaging.
No matter the particular type drug and drug package collection unit utilized by hospitals, pharmacies or the like, the destruction of expired drugs is subject to strict accountability. For example, pills or capsules which are destroyed in a hospital environment must be removed from the container, blister pack or the like and crushed in the presence of two persons, generally nurses. Obviously, removing individual pills/capsules from a multiple dose blister pack before crushing the same is work intense and wasteful of the expertise and healthcare efforts of nurses whether in hospitals, nursing homes, rehabilitation centers or other healthcare facilities. Accordingly, the healthcare industry as a whole requires that which to date has not been provided, namely, a drug shredding machine which can efficiently, safely and with a high degree of accountability heretofore unprovided in the industry shred/collect drugs and drug packaging with unparallel security and the prevention of theft, black marketing, resale, pirating, re-use, pilferage, shrinkage and dumpster diving with respect to expired/tainted or otherwise unuseful drugs.